21.07. 2021

Why Tel Burna (Libnah?)???

Questions and aims

  1. Is it really biblical Libnah?
    • an earlier form of the Arabic name (Tell Bornât) might retain a corrupted form of the biblical name
    • a corruption of the biblical name by means of metathesis (trasposition of sounds or letters in a word)
    • book of Joshua 12 – the list of slain kings coressponds with archaeological dating of the mentioned sites (e.g. Ether)
  2. Evidence of the siege by the Assyrian army

Source: McKinny et al., 2018

Tel Burna as biblical Libnah

Joshua 10:29 Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it.

Source: Joshua 10:29 NIV

2 Kings 19:8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

Source: 2 Kings 19:8 NIV

2 Kings 23:31-32 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.

Source: 2 Kings 23:31-32 NIV

Jeremiah 52:1-3 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 It was because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence.

Source: Jeremiah 52:1-3 NIV

Research area

Results

I. How to interpret visually homogeneous stratigraphy?

OSL

Explanation
  1. Provides relative or absolute dating of mineral grains.

  2. Based on the fact that if a mineral is exposed to sufficient light (e.g., sunlight), some or all of this stored energy will be lost.

  3. OSL provides more precise dating than radiocarbon method (ranging from a few centuries to about 150,000 years).























Source: Author

Soil texture

Explanation
Name of soil separate Diameter limits in mm (WRB classification)
Clay less than 0.002
Sand 0.002 – 0.063
Very fine sand 0.063 – 0.125
Fine sand 0.125 – 0.20
Medium sand 0.20 – 0.63
Coarse sand 0.63 – 1.25
Very coarse sand 1.25 – 2.00


It enables to determine changes in soil texture through archaeological stratigraphy.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/

XRF

Explanation
  1. Soil samples are irradiated with photons, usually from an X-ray tube. The X-ray beam excites electrons in the sample, causing it to emit secondary X-rays (fluoresce). The emitted energies occur at energies specific to elements in the sample, appearing as peaks over a given energy spectrum.

  2. The height or intensity of a given peak reflects, in part, the concentration of that element in the sample and may be converted to units of concentration, usually by comparison to a regression line or quadratic algorithm based on well characterized standards

  3. It is a fast and cheap method of obtaining data directly in the field.

  4. Data processing requires thorough statistical processing compositional data - Aitchison geometry).

Source: Smith et al., 2020

Source: Michal Hejcman

“When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.”


Source: Isaiah 37:8-17 NIV; https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/

II. What happens after abandonment?

Conclusion



  1. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to integrate several geoarchaeological methods and thus explain certain past human activities at a tell, based on sedimentary traces analysis.

  2. Iron Age IIB fill is an artificial sediment transferred from the tel’s slope to support the wall. The conclusions were confirmed by the use of the POSL.

  3. These results made it possible to create a hypothesis about the site’s history during the Iron Age II. It can be assumed that the transfer of soil was part of the preparations carried out in apprehension as by Sennacherib ’s military campaign in 701 BCE (2 Kgs 19:8-9).

  4. Aeolian dust deposition was confirmed by the presence of Ca in the topsoil.

Sources



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McKinny, C., Yang, B., Cassuto, D., Shai, I., 2018. Illuminating a Canaanite and Judahite town: the archaeological background of Tel Burna, in: Chai, T., Johnson, D. (Eds.), Essays in Honor of Kay Fountain. pp. 1–15.

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